User talk:Futonrevoltion
Welcome Hi, welcome to the Dragon Age Wiki! Thanks for joining! I hope that you will stick around and continue to help us improve the wiki. Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! -- D-day (Talk) 21:43, 5 March 2011 Timestamp when signing I just realized you don't leave a timestamp in your comments, but it's recommended to do it as it tells others when you posted this message (I suppose you either type your signature manually, or use three tildes instead of four—the latter will always leave a timestamp). --'D.' (talk ·''' ) 06:46, June 17, 2011 (UTC) :Sorry about that! I've been rather inconsistent with my signatures, but, yes, I'd been typing it manually for the last few weeks. I really do need to timestamp, to be slightly more accountable. Futonrevoltion (talk) 23:22, June 19, 2011 (UTC) ::That's fine. :] If you're typing it manually because you want to make it more customizable, you can change in your preferences. --'''D. (talk ·''' ) 15:57, June 20, 2011 (UTC) Witch Hunt Hey yesterday you said you knew how to get pass the glitch for the ps3 on witch hunt, I don't really care about she not remember but is there a trick to get to save after the conversation, thats what i am more worried about since the game will see the ritual even though she won't, and since i can't save at the end of it so that conversation is pretty much useless. Thanks. VampireBlood03 (talk) 22:55, July 17, 2011 (UTC) issue with Gaider Seeing your comments under Loleil's blog, I can't help but wonder - would it be too bold to ask you about some details of your correspondence with Mr Gaider? I've been somewhat at a loss what to think of him, ever since I read the novels, as well as his entirely unprofessional responses to the criticism of DA2 at the BSN, not to mention the DA2 itself. I found them all highly disappointing, for a man who allegedly wrote Alistair and Morrigan and whom I thought to be at the core of the DAO's success. Ever since then, I have had this gnawing suspicion that the literary talent we admire behind DAO is not, in fact, just Gaider's, but that of Laidlaw's predecessor, Brent Knowles. DO you think you could provide some pieces to the puzzle? --Ygrain (talk) 20:13, October 17, 2011 (UTC) :I just checked Amazon and, in August, Brent Knowles released a book, called "Lazy Designer" (as in, Design Career for Dummies, rather than Designers who are Dummies) that I'm looking forward to reading. My opinion, from what I remember of his posts, is that Knowles was repulsed by the idea of being a celebrity/selling point, was marginalized as a result, and left because he wanted actual work to do. I wonder what his opinion of the marketing plan for "Shadows of the Damned" is. :Honestly, from what I've read of his work, Morrigan doesn't seem like a Gaider character, at '''all, apart from the systemic child abuse in many of the companion backstories. The lines where Alistair hits on the Warden are eerily similar to comments I've read on his Twitter and the like. "Do you want me, even though I'm not human?" "Especially because you're not human!" Yeeeuch! I give him pretty close to full credit for the best parts of Alistair's dialogue, too, to be fair. :Very little of what Gaider's told me was helpful. The only actual insight is that he believes collaboration to be a post-production process, where the separate characters' scripts are reconciled with each other. He's been incredibly vague, whenever I ask about a character's motivation or history, which makes me really doubt his involvement and/or memory and/or respect for others' work. When I ask about Alistair's relationship with Eamon and why no Templars ever recognized him, for example, the standard response is that "you can think what you want." When pressed, I'm told that "if you can't figure that out, on your own, than sic I can't help you." To this day, I've never been given hints to those supposed hints, withing the text, just that he'll spell them out - in words small enough for me to understand - in DLC and books. I'm not 100% sure, but he may also have convinced himself that any & all outside editing does nothing but obscure an (well, more like "the") author's intent. The lion's share of his pearls of wisdom (which I'm loving the visual of) are pretty much the responses he gave on BSN, but more as if he didn't care if someone else read them. I haven't actually finished any of Gaider's books, so I don't have any worthwhile/fair-minded opinions on them. :It's more than fair to say that - when I bother anymore - my letters are a wee bit more confrontational: "So-and-So asked a perfectly innocent question. Do you really think they deserved the abusive non-answer you gave?" or "I really wish I could believe that was a misquote. You know as well, as anyone else, that was petty, mean-spirited, and yet another attempt to pretend that Origins doesn't exist." Futonrevoltion (talk) 21:58, October 17, 2011 (UTC) ::Frankly, I was also surprised to find out that Morrigan is Gaider's creation. Alistair, yes - in The Stolen Throne, young Maric is very Alistairish. ::I don't read the BSN much, mostly only when someone posts a link on the wiki, but the little I have seen puzzles me. For instance, he discussed in quite a detail Loghain's involvement at Ostagar, where he said that Loghain never intended the beacon to be lit (i.e., at the time of the war council, the decision was already made), yet elsewhere, he claims that the decision to really walk away was made when he actually saw the beacon lit - now, isn't it a bit contradictory? And, since you say that he is unable/unwilling to provide other character's motivations, it's also peculiar that he elaborates on Loghain so, one would really expect that he knows them all, not just his favourites. (And, just BTW, I don't see any of those supposed hints that you're supposedly too dumb to see, either). ::Yet another puzzling point is Gaider's relationship to the Origins - either ignoring, or downright bashing it, as compared to the ardent defence of the DA2. This is actually one of the reasons which made start pondering the "Knowles (or someone else) factor", as it seems very unlikely to me that someone should look down on the work he spent so much time on, unless the other work was much more a conception of his own (another reason was the considerable inaptitude at the story development management in DA2, which I found rather similar to The Stolen Throne - not story-wise itself but the cluelessness).--Ygrain (talk) 04:54, October 18, 2011 (UTC) :::Should I attempt to finish Gaider's books? I'm not sure I go back to them without unMakerly amounts of bias, especially if 3+ of the characters are clones of Alistair. If I want 1st draft fanfic, I can write my own, I suppose. :::I haven't been on BSN, in well over a year, but I see the entirety of Return to Ostagar as a contradiction, even within its own revisionist history. Cailan was, apparently, running a shadow government, behind the back of the shadow government he was running with Eamon, which was countering Loghain's shadow government, which was pulling the strings of Anora's privately acknowledged government, which was operating behind-the-scenes of Cailan's above-ground government. And that was all just to make Loghain seem less villainous, and have him be right to deny the Orlesian Chevaliers from entering Ferelden, at the expense of the player's already shaky opinion of Cailan? I probably shouldn't go into how I see the timeline of Loghain's plans, though, unless you're feeling masochistic. I haven't seen anyone else's that explains why Uldred was originally meant to light the beacon. :::Besides, just like "Blade Runner" making more thematic sense, if Deckard is human, DA:O is better served, in my opinion, if Loghain's years of contingency plans were thwarted simply by Cailan insisting spur-of-the-moment that Alistair be placed in (what was supposed to be) the safest place possible, under the Warden's protection. :::Of the things I remember of Gaider, on BSN, the one that's stuck with me is his comment about Ferelden not having any more stories worth telling, so it was time to move to more interesting places/people in Thedas. It's such a childish, petulant thing to say. Especially since his books are mainly prequels for the old guard of Origins characters. Maybe people actually believe that stories are somehow easier to write, when one plots them out, backwards? Perhaps the RtO-version of Cailan is modeled, after Gaider, locking Eamon and Alistair out of the battle, to prove what a big boy he is. If Laidlaw wasn't so pleasant & oblivious, would he be under a bus, as well? :::And, yes, I find the (bad) film noir framed narrative absolutely mind-boggling. It's theoretically possible to do competently... but it's still be a really, really dumb idea. No one is Stanley Kubrick, except for Stanley Kubrick (and, sometimes, not even he was). You've probably had to slog through enough of my artsy-fartsy Film Study get-off-my-lawn posts, to last a lifetime, though. Futonrevoltion (talk) 02:35, October 19, 2011 (UTC) ::::Speaking of fanfic, I'veraed a good couple of them that managed both the character and story development _better _ ::::RtO... i wonder how much of it does come as a retcon, since if I remember correctly, the Orlais involvement was originally intended to be developed on within the game (Celene was suposed to be visiting Ferelden), so maybe they're just elaborating on that, instead of adding info that has no base in the game? Anyway, while I cannot claim to know the devs' intention, but if RtO _was_ actually meant as a defence of Loghain, it worked absolutely the other way round for me - as a Cousland, I perceive Cailan's correspondence as a reason why Loghain either allowed, or directly ordered, the Highever massacre. - The same with the Stolen Throne: while lots of people claim that it brought them to understanding, or appreciating, Loghain, it made me hate him more, not less. And BTW, if you do want to elaborate on Loghain's conspiracy timeline, do go ahead, it's a favourite part of mine. :-) ::::No stories worth telling about Ferelden? Pah. Never mind, I actually prefer the above-mentioned works to Gaider's :-) - But you're right that it was a stupid thing to say. :::I might be reading too much into it, but I see DA2's redesign of Darkspawn, Lore, art direction, etc., as attempts to justify the push away from Origins. Darkspawn are non-threatening, Lothering is browner than ever, what have you. Combining the "Ferelden is played out" with "Hawke will not appear in DA3," seems to be a real trend. I hate acknowledging the Warden's existence, DA2 sold badly, so Hawke's out, and I'm getting unreasonable amounts of flak over Leliana, so the "default, which, like my books, totally isn't the same thing as 'canon'" will have Alistair, Varric, and MS Paint stretch-tooled self-hating Internet Girl deviantart breasts. I couldn't do a 2nd playthrough of Origins, until the Female Proportions mod (no man hands or linebacker shoulders, but hipbones and a 'mere' D-cup) came out, and it doesn't look like Kirkwall will ever get either of them. :::Let's see... this is mostly off the top of my head: # Stolen Throne: Maric - Rowan - Loghain love triangle and prophecy wankery. The Couslands, firmly behind Maric, to the exclusion of all others, execute Rendon Howe's father and absorb large chunks of Amaranthine. Howe is reinstated as the Arl of what's left, giving Loghain a powerful weapon to counter Highever, in case Maric gets any funny ideas about who's in charge. # Calling: Loghain established, in Ferelden conventional wisdom, as the actual ruler; he and Duncan jockey for influence with Maric. # Anora is set loose upon Cailan, fortifying Loghain's position. Tabs are kept on Alistair, who is now the only viable threat, to the Mac Tir line. Arl Eamon would be a serious liability, if Isolde wasn't so determined to make herself easy to blackmail. # Return to Ostagar: Apparently, Loghain and Arl Eamon have been in a shadow war, with Eamon pretending that Cailan can create a third Chantry, to rubber-stamp a divorce. Seeing Eamon and Isolde, as the perfect example of a healthy marriage, Cailan comes under Celene I's influence. # Uldred starts a ludicrously extensive Blood Mage secret society. Jowan somehow manages to be completely ignorant of this. # Fifth Blight begins. # Cailan calls in Duncan and opens formal relations and military cooperation with Orlais. Worst of all, for the first time in his life, he directly says no to Loghain and doesn't back down, signing his death warrent. # Cailan brings in Mages from the Ferelden Circle Tower. Arl Howe is let off his leash to eliminate Cailan's Cousland allies. The Orlesians are stopped at the border. Fergus is sent into the Wilds and Alistair is within easy reach. All that's left is Eamon. # Uldred and his cronies rather enjoy being able to use the full extent of their legal powers; being free to use their illegal blood powers, as well, is looking rather appealing. Loghain is the most obvious choice to ally with. # Cailan is still refusing to allow Eamon to join the battle, screwing up Loghain's timetable of destroying the unsalvageable parts of the Theirin power base, before the Orlesians become a threat. Jowan falls into Loghain's lap and is sent to Redcliffe, apparently arriving, just after Duncan leaves. Duncan and the Warden arrive in Ostagar. Loghain gets a kick out of Duncan not being able to exert any influence over Cailan. Uldred is supposed to be in charge of the signal, but is blocked by the Chantry. Either to keep him safe or hog the Theirin glory, Alistair is sent to the Tower of Ishal. # Slaughter of Ostagar and pretty conclusive proof that Duncan wasn't very bright. This plan of standing in front of three lines of barricades and fighting like Jackie Chan villains will work, your Majesty. Isolde reacts, beyond Loghain's wildest dreams, dismantling the only remaining domestic military threat. # Loghain puts bounty out on Alistair (with Bann Loren doing clean-up work on the refugees from Ostagar) and Howe travels to Denerim to clean house. Unfortunately, Arl Bryland bugs out, instead of making even a token attempt to defend his lands and die. Uldred gets back to the Circle and, in a bid for enough power to assure victory when Loghain's orders come in, gets himself possessed by the dopiest Pride Demon in the entire Fade. The Orlesian vanguard's leadership sneaks into Ferelden and is captured. # Chantry imports of lyrium, from Orzammar grinds to a halt. Loghain hires Zevran to fix Bann Loren's incompetence with letting Alistair slip through the net. Bann Teagan proves to be an effective rabble-rouser, draining Loghain's mad money, making both the Darkspawn and further Orlesian opportunism be real concerns. Tevinter is brought in, as an investor. Arl Howe's account at Goons'R Us goes platinum. ::So, as I see it, Return to Ostagar is the only thing that gives Loghain anything close to a motivation, other than power-mongering self-preservation, portraying Cailan as a threat to Ferelden independence and a worthy target of vengeance, for his daughter's sake. Futonrevoltion (talk) 20:09, October 19, 2011 (UTC) ROFL, loved the "Anora is set loose on Cailan"! As to the "shadow war": not sure if this was really Loghain versus Eamon - I somehow got an impression that it was actually Cailan making a stand against Loghain, and the poisoning of Eamon was rather means of cutting down Cailan's support. Also, it is unclear when exactly Cailan signed his death warrant - if we are to rely on the devs' word, Loghain had not planned to get rid of Cailan before Ostagar. My favourite theory is that this decision was made only after Loghain found out about Cailan's private correspondence with Celene (I believe up till then, he knew only of the official cooperation) Not sure how to interpret Cailan's precautions prior the battle - I can't believe he was so ingenious as to suspect that Loghain would walk away on him and sacrifice hal an army; either it had dawn on him that the fight could be tougher than the previous and made precautions just-in-case, or he found out that Loghain was reading his mail (via the crumpled letter, which I believe was no work of Cailan's) and was afraid that he might have an "acident" (in this light, sticking around the most seasoned fighters in Ferelden may have not been such a stupid plan) The cinematic of the Ostagar battle is pretty to watch but I refuse to take it for more than a depiction of a battle by people who have neither seen nor planned an actual battle, and wouldn't be able to even if their very lives depended on it. Arl Bryland in point 12 - didn't you mean Arl Urien of Denerim? I must say I quite liked the hindsight RtO provided, though I felt that the potential Orlesian threat was pretty clear even in-game, and as I have said above, I didn't find Loghain justified _at all_. --Ygrain (talk) 13:12, October 21, 2011 (UTC) :The only place the shadow war is alluded to is in Return to Ostagar and, considering that it begins with Elric spouting a bunch of nonsense about Cailan treating the battle, as a suicide mission... I'm inclined to ignore most - if not all - of that entire DLC. Eamon seems rather frightened of Loghain in the vanilla game, after all, and Loghain has plenty of only-in-his-own-mind non-political reasons to have grown to despise Eamon (Isolde, growing soft with age, pandering to the public, etc.). :Waiting until the very last war council, to make the decision to remove Cailan, makes no sense to me. Why would he deploy Arl Howe, Berwick and Jowan beforehand? That's a lot of risk for no purpose, other than to get himself convicted of high treason. Poirot or Mike Hammer would have been very disappointed with how the latter two instantly flip, when asked a direct question. I'm pretty sure that softening Loghain's image was a trend, at the time, when the devs said that. Cailan (probably in conjunction with Duncan, Loghain's old rival for Maric's attention) invited Orlesian troops to cross the entire length of Ferelden - with all sorts of available targets, with tiny garrisons, along the way. If Cailan hadn't died, when he did, Loghain wouldn't have had enough time to legally turn them away. :Petulantly standing up to Loghain on the issue, beforehand (probably, while still in Denerim with no Bannorn in session to stop Cailan from opening the border to foreign troops), certainly wouldn't have helped. :And, yes, I meant Arl Bryland. He was a staunch supporter of the throne and, if it was just a large raid, may have been enough to hold the line - it takes enough time for an entire major quest, before the darkspawn take Lothering, after all. I'm definitely reaching with that one, of course. :I can't imagine Cailan being ingenious enough for contingency plans, on the RtO level, either, and besides... I find the idea of Loghain ultimately being thwarted, by the equivalent of a toddler's "No! Stoooop! I can do it myself, Mommy!" and "Duncan keeps playing with my dumb kid brother, instead of with me. " very appealing. :I'm eventually going to sit down, and read your fanfics. I keep forgetting to check, if people actually use the blog. Futonrevoltion (talk) 17:42, October 21, 2011 (UTC) I don't think Loghain waited with the decision till the last war council, I believe that by that time, the decision was already done and all he needed was an opportunity to carry out his plan. Cailan's army must have been stationed at Ostagar for weeks, even months, and as I read what Gaider has said about that, Loghain left for Ostagar knowing that there was going to be a power struggle between him and Cailan, so he was making up plans to cut down the opposition in advance (planning to poison Eamon so that he would be too ill to participate - now, this is what Gaider claims, that the poisoning was not supposed to be lethal) but he did not intend to kill Cailan yet. As I see it, some point later,he got his hand on Cailan's secret correspondence and realized the danger both to his powerand Ferelden. The plan to remove Eamon temporarily was probably already under way, so he stuck with that, and unleashed Howe on the Couslands, while waiting till an opportunity to get rid of Cailan (and Duncan) would present itself. When Fergus arrived, Loghain sent him away so that he wouldn't enquire about Bryce and Howe's "delay" (and probably reyling that if he sent Fergus far enough, he would run into the horde and get himself killed). Howe never bothered to march for Ostagar, knowing there was no need to, and went to Denerim instead, to secure the city for Loghain (and depositing Vaughan into his own dungeon, to secure the arling for himself). What really pisses me in the game are the timelines - I don't think anyone ever bothered to count the miles and days the way Tolkien did, and so we'getting nonsense of the HN arriving at Ostagar _after_ Fergus, even though two men on their own would be able to travel _much_ faster than an army. - Of course, we can expect that HN was injured during the fight of the castle and spent some time healing, but this should have been indicated somehow. Also, the whole thing with Jowan is rather unclear to me - how did he end up down in Redcliffe while Irminric was imprisoned in Denerim, when Jowan was commissioned by Loghain himself, who at that time must already have been stationed at Ostagar, or did he take a week off? As I see it, someone didn't do their homework when devising this. You will actually find very little on the blog, because 95% of my stuff is on the ff.n - now, if you sit down to read _that_ all, you'll probably develop a very sore ass :D --Ygrain (talk) 06:09, October 22, 2011 (UTC) :No villainous character twirls their mustache and says, wistfully, that they're glad someone's father wasn't around to see it, if they didn't have a day in mind. And no one says, as a storm approaches, "Yeeees... A glorious moment for us all. Muahahahaha!" unless there's some premeditated vengeance unfolding. :The only thing that kept Eamon alive, was the Desire Demon ("I love my dead abominable son."), so it's possible that Gaider never played the game. In his defense, there're so many variables, that a strict timeline would be buggy beyond repair. The Warden can do what must be months of travel and sidequests, before Lothering is destroyed. Even a vague hand-waving timeline would be a big improvement, though. :Tolkien had the foresight and inclination to approach Middle Earth, as a travelogue - build the languages, build a world to support them, then write books to show it off, where the protagonists travel the length and breadth of his creation. BioWare approached Thedas (and every other setting they've done), as a D&D campaign, where the campaign world is lovingly crafted, over years (with probably decades of it bouncing around in the original creator's head), with a bog-standard fantasy plotline plopped on top of it. :Someone who takes over a GM's chair - in a pen-and-paper RPG usually keeps the campaign world, to keep the players around, but almost always chucks most of it because they want to tell their own stories (and subconsciously resent having to work within someone else's baggage; however, back when the original creator was in charge, writing characters to be in that world was great fun, so long as they were placed high upon pedestals/thrones and unkillable - though other players would mess with those character, the best that they could, just to make the guy mad). It happens all the time with just about every fantasy franchise, that I can think of, from each & every D&D setting to Star Wars novels to Superman comic books to collectable card games (perhaps, even fantasy football?): campaign worlds that have dozens of sourcebooks are constantly being destroyed in fiery apocalypses to allow for new developers, writers, players, and book sales. Futonrevoltion (talk) 15:52, October 23, 2011 (UTC) forum comment hello, I just read the message you left at Forum:Advice for Dragon Age:Origins, I don't take offence in the comment itself, but I am slightly annoyed because you placed it above the comment that I left. I assume you didn't do this on purpose and simply didn't see it, but please pay attention to it next time.--Schrödingercat (talk) 18:41, November 29, 2011 (UTC) :You must have been submitting your edit, at the same time I did. Wikis are known for having problems with sequencing. Futonrevoltion (talk) 22:02, November 29, 2011 (UTC) Private communication Is there a way to talk to you in private? You do not seem to be displaying an e-mail, and I stubbornly refuse to join Facebook. --Ygrain (talk) 22:42, November 29, 2011 (UTC) Futonrevolutionx@msn.com is the most likely one for me to check. Or, I can remember to keep ICQ (603689525), Yahoo (p1pedan), or the wiki chat on, but I'd have to be yelled at to do so. I was a beta-tester for "Star Wars: The Old Republic" and am close to burnt out, by how little enjoyment I got out of its $125+ million budget. The legions of BioWare alt accounts, screaming that the non-WoW business model of "free-to-play" with purchased DLC is tantamount to theft and that a monthly fee costs less per day than your morning coffee, is almost amusing. Futonrevoltion (talk) 19:39, November 30, 2011 (UTC) OK, tried the email :-) --Ygrain (talk) 07:56, December 1, 2011 (UTC) Re Wiki discussion Hi :) I replied to you here, curious if your opinion might change. Asherinka (talk) 08:57, February 21, 2012 (UTC) Hey Futon, did the chat just die? I got disconnected and it won't let me re-open the window. EzzyD (talk) 18:40, April 30, 2012 (UTC) It lets me reopen the window, but the window's title is just ":" I have no idea how long it will be down. Злой "futonrevolution" мальчик (talk) 18:55, April 30, 2012 (UTC) Damn... It must happen every once in a while. EzzyD (talk) 19:01, April 30, 2012 (UTC)